A statewide tracking system, he said, might have merit in furthering accountability.

"There may be cases in the future that evidence is not tested," he acknowledged. "I still believe that we have come a long, long way. "I don't think we'll ever again see mass hoarding of rape kits in property rooms again."

Clear progress

For the most part, that seems to be the case.

Since 2011, the number of rape kits submitted to the state's Bureau of Criminal Investigation (BCI) forensic labs has skyrocketed by 167 percent, with 2,836 submitted last year. That number doesn't include several larger cities that send their evidence to local or regional testing labs.

State law, since 2015, requires departments to submit rape kits to a crime lab for testing within 30 days of determining a crime "may have" been committed.

DeWine, along with Cleveland officials and sexual assault victim advocates and lab staff, will discuss the progress that has been made at a press conference in Richfield, where a BCI crime lab is located. The ripple effect of testing has led to the indictments of more than 650 rape suspects in Cuyahoga County. DeWine said the task force created by former County Prosecutor Timothy McGinty in Cleveland, which includes investigators, prosecutors and victim advocates, should be a model for communities across the state.

Current County Prosecutor Michael O'Malley, who was out of town, said in an email that the accomplishment is an important reminder that "each victim's allegation of sexual assault needs to be thoroughly investigated so we can bring them justice and keep our communities safe."

More to do

Yet, there's unfinished business.

The majority of follow-up investigations have been in urban centers like Cleveland, as well as in Toledo and Akron, which have asked for and received help from state investigative agents.

Other Ohio communities, DeWine said, "have taken no action or very little action."

DeWine is careful not to criticize those departments, and instead said his office and lab will continue to reach out and offer help to get the cases investigated.

Every victim of sexual assault deserves to have her or his evidence tested, Sondra Miller, president and CEO of the Cleveland Rape Crisis Center (CRCC) said. But the journey for sexual assault survivors doesn't end with evidence being tested, she said. Each person deserves to be notified of their results and have their case fully investigated and prosecuted.

"There is more work to be done to ensure transparency and accountability for the evidence as it passes through police departments," Miller said.

"There are many lessons to be learned from this work. Among those lessons, we know that it is never too late to tell a survivor that we believe them and that they did not deserve what happened to them."

More than 900 law enforcement agencies statewide will have an opportunity to benefit from the new knowledge at a statewide sexual assault conference, DeWine said his office is planning. That information also will be compiled are shared with departments that cannot attend.

Research at Ohio colleges and universities has allowed labs to understand the best methods for testing, and busted long-held myths about how rapists chose their victims.

Testing of kits has also been heralded as an important avenue to exonerate individuals who might have been wrongfully convicted of rape.

However, lab officials have not been alerted to any cases where DNA testing revealed a person was wrongfully charged in a case, spokeswoman Jill Del Greco said. The lab has worked on cases where the DNA identified belongs to someone different than a suspect in the case, Del Greco said. The lab staff, though, doesn't know whether the suspect was charged or whether the DNA might belong to a consensual sexual partner, so they send that information to the department.

In newly submitted cases, DeWine said mandatory testing has the potential to prevent wrongful arrests, though it is hard to quantify how often that happens.

"Testing means police departments can avoid pointing the finger at people who are innocent," he said. "[Suspects] can be ruled out much earlier, including some that may have been charged [without testing]."